Iodine deficiency is the single most common cause of preventable mental retardation and brain damage in the world. It also decreases child survival, causes goiters, and impairs growth and development. Iodine deficiency in pregnant women causes miscarriages, stillbirths, and other complications. Children with iodine deficiency disorder (IDD) can grow up stunted, mentally retarded, and incapable of normal movements, speech, or hearing. Globally, 2.2 billion people (38% of the world's population) live in areas with iodine deficiency and risk its complications. Iodine deficiency and the problems it causes can be prevented by use of iodized salt and effective monitoring of iodine nutrition. However, the level of iodization of salt should be carefully regulated as inadequate levels in the diet will have no noticeable benefit, while excessive doses are wasteful, and may actually result in detrimental health effects. A reliable, simple, and rapid method is therefore needed for routine monitoring of iodine levels in iodized salt at the manufacturing, distribution, retail and household levels. Currently available methods for determination of iodine levels in salt (e.g. colorimetry, classical titration, flow injection analysis, ion chromatography, and ICP-MS) are either not sufficiently sensitive and/or are laborious, require use of highly corrosive chemicals and/or require specialized and expensive equipment, and therefore are not suitable for field testing. To address this need, Lynntech is proposing to develop a simple innovative method for rapid and accurate measurement of iodine levels in salt, suitable for field testing. This method will utilize convenient, disposable, dry reagent cartridges for sample conditioning and iodine level determination and eliminates the need for use of highly corrosive liquid reagents. To determine the iodine content of a salt sample by Lynntech's method, one will simply dissolve a salt sample in water, pass the solution through the cartridge, and take the reading. During Phase I of the project Lynntech will demonstrate the feasibility of using this innovative method being developed at Lynntech for rapid and accurate determination of iodine level in salt through successful achievement of the following objectives: i). Demonstrate that iodide from iodized salts can be oxidized to iodine using a dried oxidizing agent; ii). Demonstrate that iodate from iodized salts can be reduced to iodine using a dried reducing agent; iii). Demonstrate that the iodine released from the iodized salts can be determined quantitatively by the proposed colorimetric method. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Iodine deficiency and the problems it causes can be prevented by use of iodized salt and effective monitoring of iodine nutrition. Currently available methods for determination of iodine level in salt are either not sufficiently sensitive and/or are laborious, require use of highly corrosive chemicals and/or require specialized and expensive equipment, and therefore, are not suitable for field applications. Lynntech is proposing to develop a simple and accurate method using disposable cartridges for routine monitoring of iodine levels in iodized salt in the field.